The morning moon, lies pearl white, stark and still in an ink black, predawn sky, alone now that all the stars have gone to bed.  She takes my breath away while time stands still, as still as this morning before the world awakens.  My heart aches in that moment of beholding her, pausing to rejoice at such beauty freely bestowed on any bold enough to turn their gaze from earth to heaven, if only for an instant.

It is only a moment in the slow, swift approach of the coming day that morning moon and I share.  I look away, overwhelmed, her beauty too much to fully take in a moment more.  I tell myself I will remember how it was and turn my eyes to other tasks that take my time.

When next I look for her again, the sky is now a palest blue and my morning moon, still there to keep me company, has become a paler, more translucent version of her once luminous self.  She now must share the sky with the morning sun, but still she lingers, unwilling to disappear though her allotted time is past. This ancient ritual, the changing of the guard, plays out with me as witness once again. My morning moon hangs on, deigning or daring (depending on your point of view) to share the sky a little longer with her constant rival.

Oh, morning moon!  Such beauty I cannot contain, though I long to reach out and hold her here with me, if only for a moment more.  I long to possess what cannot be possessed, perchance to purchase what is not for sale but is God’s gift to one and all.  The beauty in this still life moment, this moment that is not still at all, but oh so fleeting, eluding any grasp I would attempt, leaves me to wonder, did I see her thus at all?, when she has finally left her place and gone to grace another’s sky.

“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.’  And it was so.  God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.  He also made the stars.  God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.  And God saw that it was good.”   (Genesis 1:14-18)

sincerely,      Grace Day